Code-switching in Political Campaign Speeches: the Case Of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-addo

Abstract

Code-switching in political discourse has gained considerable attention from researchers over the past decades. These researchers have shown how code-switching is used in political discourse to maximize personal or political gains. Using ten video clips of the 2016 political campaign speeches of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the president of the Republic of Ghana, collected from YouTube and Facebook, the study investigated the types of code-switching, the socio-psychological motivation of code-switching, and the conversational functions of code-switching. The study employed Myers-Scotton’s (1993) Markedness Model and Gumperz’s (1982) Conversational Analysis as a combined analytical framework. The study revealed that all three types of code-switching (the inter-sentential, intra-sentential, and tag switching) were evident in the political campaign speeches of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. However, another code-switching type, the intra-word, was evident in the data. Further, the intra-sentential code-switching was employed frequently by the speaker to fill lexical gaps. Instances of marked code-switching which were employed for various communicative purposes included the following: creating aesthetic effect, increasing social distance via authority and/or anger, revealing speakers as entrepreneurs, expressing group solidarity and ethnic identity. The study, again, revealed that Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo employed code-switching to show courtesy and/or refinement in his speech, to perform phatic functions, and to show off his linguistic competence. Finally, this study has implications for political communication and contact linguistics and serves as an impetus for further research.